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Moody's Investors Service assigned a Ba2 rating to the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company's (A&P) new $280 million senior secured bank facility because of the highly competitive supermarket industry. "[For the consumer] there are lots of options other than the chain store," said Elaine Francolino, senior credit officer at Moody's. "If you just look at Manhattan, the area is not growing demographically. There's the same base of people and a lot of marketers trying to get their business." Headquartered in Montvale, N.J., A&P operates about 750 supermarkets in 15 states, the District of Columbia and Ontario.

Credit Suisse First Boston is eliminating assignment fees for clients, the latest bank to do so in an effort to improve liquidity. No retail buyer will be charged a fee on a deal for which CSFB was the agent, and banks that have also eliminated assignment fees will not be charged. Don Pollard, global co-head of the syndicated loan group, said the bank hopes this will be an incentive for other banks to do the same. "This is a change the market was calling for," he said. "As one of the top four underwriters, we're eliminating fees to promote liquidity."

BNP Paribas Peregrine on Tuesday completed what competitor bankers saw as an opportunistic $161m placement of 492.65m shares in Beinjing Datang Power Generation Co on behalf of vendor New World Infrastructure. The shares priced at HK$2.55, slightly above the HK$2.52 level at which New World bought the shares in March 1997.

Taiwan's largest telecommunications firm, Chunghwa Telecom, indicated on Monday that it may resume prospective marketing for a US listing. A Chunghwa official said the ministry of transportation and communications may lead a non-deal roadshow to international fund managers and, in the process, gauge sentiment towards its planned $2.8bn American depository receipt (ADR) offering, which was recently halted on the eve of the original roadshow.

Australia Principal Financial Global Funding, a funding vehicle for US insurance company Principal Financial Group, launched a A$150m five year floating rate note via lead manager National Australia Bank this week. The Aa2/AA Kangaroo bond was priced at a spread of 47bp over the bank bill swap rate.

The Singapore domestic debt market took another bold step this week with the successful launch of the largest domestic bond offering by Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel). The company took advantage of the deepening local bond market and low interest rates to launch a S$1bn five year transaction - S$400m larger than the previous deal. The reception for the deal, which will support the corporate's regional expansion and acquisition plans, was largely complimentary, although some bankers questioned the aggressive pricing.

A spate of Japanese issues emerged this week but the market responded by pushing the shares well below the levels at which they were trading when the deals were announced. Nikko Salomon Smith is sole bookrunner for the sale of 13m shares plus a 2m share greenshoe for Konami, which is seeking new capital for its acquisition of a chain of fitness centres. The stock closed at ¥4,820 yesterday (Thursday), down 19% from last Friday's close of ¥5,950. At ¥4,820, the deal is worth ¥72bn ($620m) including the greenshoe.

Merrill Lynch completed a $604.5m convertible preference share issue into the US 144A market in the early hours of Thursday morning, Australia time, for News America Inc. Merrill Lynch was sole lead manager for its in-house US convertible product, LYONS. These are liquid yield option notes and have a standard maturity of 20 years, with investor puts at the end of five, 10 and 15 years. The five year yield to put is 3.5%. There is call protection up to the end of five years. The notes are zero coupon and carry a conversion premium of 25% to the last trade of preferred stock in the US market of $32.90, implying a conversion price of $41.13.

Australia Allco Finance's newly formed subsidiary Record Investments has raised $190m from its float of 100m shares. The shares are to be paid for in two instalments. Investors will pay a first instalment of $1 per share and a second, 12 months later, of 90¢. The pricing of the second instalment was determined by an institutional bookbuild, which closed last Friday oversubscribed and had a range of 90¢ and $1.10.

Goldman Sachs and Nikko Salomon Smith Barney this week exercised the greenshoe option and placed an extra 60,000 new NTT DoCoMo shares to add to the 400,000 shares that were sold earlier this month. This brings the total issue size to ¥950bn, equivalent to more than $8.2bn. Bankers and investors expressed surprise that the lead banks exercised the greenshoe when the market price was below the issue price, rather than stabilising the stock in the market.

Arrangers Barclays Capital and JP Morgan have launched the £900m credit facility for Hanson plc.

South Africa The $150m term loan for RMB International (Dublin) was signed this week. The deal was 175% subscribed and increased from $100m to $150m. The mandated arranger was Mizuho Financial Group and arrangers were Bayerische Landesbank, HypoVereinsbank, KBC Bank, Crédit Agricole Indosuez and Standard Chartered.